


Before the crashing waves

by Confronting_the_faceless



Category: Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness
Genre: Love, Miracles, Near Death, One Shot, Poetry, Unconsciousness, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 12:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15606567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Confronting_the_faceless/pseuds/Confronting_the_faceless
Summary: Viola is reflecting on her time with Todd whilst waiting for him to wake up. "So please, if you can hear me, wake up."





	Before the crashing waves

I thought you’d died.  
I thought you’d left me, alone just like them.  
I was terrified when they went.  
Hot, burning flames surrounded them, but not me.  
Why couldn’t it have been me?  
Why did I have to be left alone?  
On another planet, trying to keep myself alive and waiting for God knows how long until everyone else was meant to land. I was utterly alone in this horrible land. 

I thought I was alone until he came.  
He was terrifying, mad. Kept looking and pointing at me,  
which made me wonder how long I had left.  
He was so loud, his noise jumbled, buzzing and forced upon everything around him.  
He never shut up. 

Girl. Girl. Girl. Girl.  
You will not know  
The burden that  
All men have to  
Bear. The lies and  
Shame, the disgrace  
Women brought  
Upon our town.  
Girl. Girl. Girl. Girl  
You will not know  
The lives that have  
Been lost in the  
Eyes of God.  
Girl. Girl. Girl. Girl  
The bodies that  
Have been buried  
All to please the  
Almighty.  
Girl. Girl. Girl. Girl  
You will not know  
How it drives  
Us mad. You knowing  
Our every thought  
But us not knowing  
A single one of ours.  
Girl. Girl. Girl  
They plotted against  
Us, like God foretold  
But no one used to  
Listen to the towns preacher.

When you came you showed me that there was some hope yet.  
Your noise was loud and spilling, youthful but comforting and familiar.  
Watching you hesitate and not be able to kill,  
showed me that you were not weak but courageous.  
Your conscience had not been blinded by the name of your town or what 'he' wanted.  
You showed me that not all people were like that.

As we went from settlement to settlement I heard in your noise that you trusted me and I realised that I trusted you too.  
I ain’t ever going to leave you  
These words echoed from your noise, day after day, a constant reminder that you would always stay by me. Dreams were full of  
Viola, Viola stay by me.  
And I did. I stayed by you.  
You killed the spackle and carried the guilt on your conscience, your noise spilling everywhere  
What have I done?  
What have I done?  
I have killed something that looks so much like me.  
All because of what I have been told.  
What have I done?  
She is going to hate me, I was doing it to protect her  
What have I done?

The first time I heard you silent was when I was sat by your bedside,  
watching you lie trapped and tormented inside your body.  
You didn’t wake up for days,  
it pained me to see you like that when I could do nothing. 

It pained me when you had to leave Ben for the second time,  
when you learnt that Cillian was dead, it reminded me  
that I had left the charred, unrecognizable bodies of my parents  
at the swamp, so many miles away surrounded by those animals.

When you left Manchee behind  
you realised that it was the only way to save me.  
It felt as if part of you had been torn away when you heard his whines  
and confused noise getting quieter and quieter.  
You’d stayed true to or unspoken agreement,  
We would never leave each other.

You could not kill. After all you had been told you could not kill.  
That is why I killed a man. I killed him to protect you –  
out of what I would now call love 

 

We both thought we were on the road to safety, to a better life.  
How wrong we were.  
How wrong we were.  
I didn’t know what had happened at first.  
I was momentarily winded, then it sunk in.  
I looked up into your eyes which were full of worry when I told you what was going on .  
Everything swelled and spiralled around me as the pain became more intense,  
how easy it was just to stop and to fall.  
I felt your arms around me.  
I could not think, the pain was unbearable.  
Your noise was full of worry and love when you said to him  
“I will do anything”. 

 

I waited and waited to see you, but I never did , yet we never gave up hope.  
I took risks just to catch a glimpse of you.  
The surprise and betrayal when I saw you joking with him – the one who had shot me.  
When I heard what you had become I knew that it wasn’t actually what you believed in – that you were doing it because you had to. 

 

You must have felt the same when we lay next to each other,  
our breathing synced and our hearts beating as one.  
You can’t imagine the pain in my heart when I saw you in the battlefield,  
I did all I could to protect you however reckless.  
It scared me when I could not hear your noise yet when we kissed it was like it was echoing through time and space just for me.  
I realised what it meant to be in love when I desperately tried to follow you when you were above me in the sky.  
Relief, it washed over me when you were there, finally tangible in front of me.  
But then you fell.  
You died on the shore before the crashing waves.  
The pain was too much.  
It felt as if someone had slowly clawed part of me away.  
My mind numb a it sunk in.  
I remember the hot angry tears falling down my face, because why were you gone ? 

 

It is a miracle that you didn’t die Todd Hewitt, it is a miracle  
Because you are going to stay.  
So please, if you can hear me, wake up.  
Wake up Todd Hewitt, cause I ain’t ever going to leave you.


End file.
